Disasters's posts - Finnish uPOST

The death toll from the collapse of a pedestrian bridge over a road at Miami’s Florida International University on March 15th has risen to at least six, with the university admitting on Saturday that one of the project engineers had waved off concerns over a crack just hours before.

What’s your nightmare, since November 8th? Perhaps your subconscious, like mine, has reserved 3AM-5AM for an exercise I like to call “Panic Town,” a half-awake, blurry, mental recitation of anything that could go catastrophically wrong for the country, or for you personally, or for...literally anyone. It’s a fun two…

School’s wrapped up for the year, which means that families across America will soon be packing into cars and hitting the open road for summer vacation. While the purpose of these trips is typically to bond and form memories, they so often (and so easily) go wrong, which is why today’s Pissing Contest is devoted to…

This upcoming Monday marks the launch of Millihelen, an exciting new Jezebel site devoted to easy and accessible makeup advice. (Read more about it here!) To celebrate the venture, we're devoting this week's Pissing Contest to your most hilarious and cringeworthy makeover disasters.

Are doomsday preppers batshit weirdo lunatics or just worriers who happen to be very resourceful? The stereotypical prepper type is at least an easy punchline. You know, marginalized white dudes, crazies, ex-military, religious freaks — outlier types who take a little too easily to conspiracy theories and are…

Just before the start of my second semester of college in New Orleans, of Louisiana fame, my dad, who had driven all the way from New Jersey with me, thus preventing me from listening to all the dance hall reggae I so desperately crave on a cross-country drive, had conversation with a scabrous Marriott bartender that…

When a gunman opened fire on an Aurora, Colorado movie theater earlier this month, three men died protecting their girlfriends, while another ran from the theater, got in his truck, and drove away, saying later that he "went to get help." The media (us included) heaped praise on the the dead men, extolling them as…

Texas has been experiencing one of the worst wildfire outbreaks in the state's history, and now at least four people are dead and more than 1,000 people have lost their homes. Due to a long drought, more than 180 fires have broken out in the last week. Over the weekend winds from Tropical Storm Lee caused one of the…

A new study shows teenage girls could face the worst harm from climate change. That's because families often pull their daughters out of school in times of extreme crisis, and may even sell them as so-called "famine brides." Girls also may not be taught the skills — like swimming or tree-climbing — they need to…

On March 16, a cargo ship crashed into Nightingale Island, part of an island chain that's home to around 150,000 Rockhopper penguins. The ship was carrying 1,500 tons of oil, and now conservationists are struggling to rescue as many penguins as they can.

24-year-old English teacher Taylor Anderson was identified yesterday as the first American tsunami victim after her body was found in the wreckage. She had been teaching in Japan since August 2008 and was last seen riding her bike back to her apartment after helping her students evacuate. Her family said in a…

Japan's malfunctioning Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors have raised fears about the Japanese people, and even Americans on the West Coast, being exposed to harmful levels of radiation. But, radiation exposure may be most dangerous for fetuses in Japan.

Glenn Beck says maybe — just maybe — the recent earthquake in Japan was caused by people failing to follow the Ten Commandments. Let's take a look back at some other ridiculous right-wing claims about disasters.

According to reports, the number of deaths resulting from yesterday's powerful earth quake and tidal wave is feared to have exceeded 1,700. Additionally, nearly 9,500 people from one town (more than half of its population) have been reported as missing, over 200 fires have flared up, thousands of buildings, homes, and…

People watch the aftermath of tsunami tidal waves covering a port at Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, after strong earthquakes hit the area Friday, March 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Keichi Nakane, The Yomiuri Shimbun). You can donate to the Red Cross's efforts in Japan here. We'll be continuously updating this…

The confirmed death toll from the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, now stands at 71 — but Prime Minister John Key has warned that it is expected to rise. This morning, local time, Police reported that no additional people were found alive in the rubble overnight. Many buildings have been flattened, and some…

20 million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan, but there's something strange about the international reaction to the disaster, a phenomenon that Amnesty International USA's Rafia Zakaria calls "a crisis of empathy."